Originally published at: Florida woman comes home to find her driveway was stolen - Boing Boing
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So strange, but I can’t imagine what the scam is…
I’m reminded of the saying that goes something like, “never attribute to evil that which can be explained by incompetence.”
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Yeah, I feel like this was a mistake as well. A contractor was given the wrong address by a landlord, probably “Andre”, who gave her address to another contractor. He should be tracked down and made to pay for restoring the driveway, if this is true.
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When I had to have my power disconnected for a day earlier this year - I found out all you need to schedule the disconnect is the name on the account and the address - usually pretty guessable.
I had a discussion about how this could be abused by someone to schedule service cut off on cold days or just to be mean. I’m guessing there isn’t a scam here in terms of ‘make money’ - but this is someone that is trying to cause harm to the woman in question.
I’d think contractors would require a contract at least (and a deposit) before starting work but it’s Florida so who knows.
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Not quite never. Evil with incompetence explains Trump.
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Where’s my driveway
To be fair that is a detached garage. Out in the more rural parts of NC you see lots of garages / workshops built on the back edge of properties that do not have a “driveway”.
A few years back a new subdivision was going in and this is essentially what they did. The builder got roasted over it, but clarified that it was the “model” house and there was no access to the front of the garage because the road into the subdivision wasn’t yet complete. Obviously once the road was completed an appropriate driveway was laid directly into the garage.
*edit to clarify - that picture was likely taken near the main entrance / road. This allowed potential buyers to turn off the main road to check out the model house, essentially driving through what became the side yard.
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And they just left it at that…?
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honestly, that was the least surprising part to me…
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I can imagine something. She’s selling the house. If they can locate “Andre”, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out he’s in the business of flipping houses. So arrange to have someone’s driveway ripped out, but don’t pay for it. Then, because that’s going to hurt the value of the home, buy the house at a lower value, then do a cheap ass reno on the house, including the cheapest driveway you can put in, sell it at a significant markup.
We bought a flipped house in 2019. We sold it less than a year later. The house looked great…on the surface. The workmanship was horrible. We had so many problems with that house. Every month, something needed repairing. I now do not trust people who make their money flipping houses. I’m sure there are good ones, but it seems like a business inherently vulnerable to abuse and fraud.
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It’s likely an overpayment scam. Contractors get called and sent a check to do something like rip out a driveway or put in a sidewalk or something. Scammer sends them a check for $5000 more than the cost, then asks for the difference to be refunded. Check bounces , sometimes after the work is done. Overpayment goes back, scammer makes a few thousand.
Zillow makes this easy, cause you can see houses for sale, and pictures of the property and everything.
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Similar to my home purchase, i don’t think it was flipped though. I think the original homeowner did juuust enough cosmetic fixes to make the house look nicer than it really was, i knew the house would need work so it’s not like i was completely fooled but i did underestimate how much work it needs. Hoping that within the next 5 years or so we can fix up most of the pressing things and get it to a much better state, ideally we’d like to sell the house but if not then we might hold onto it and rent it out. Unsure if i want to deal with tenants tho
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not to mention permits!
down here in hurricane-prone Monroe County, one needs have approval of any plan to renovate, build or landscape one’s property. and it takes time and money. a contractor will not even begin without permits in place. we had to have permits to replace an old, rotting wooden fence. this county does not fuck around!
obviously, the rest of the state makes their own rules county by county and the permitting may not be as extreme… but i believe a case could be made for some stricter oversight. but then, how could florida-da remain the real estate scammer’s paradise it has always been?
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Real-estate scam? Well, there’s always Climate Change and the future vast tracts of swamp land a scammer might drool over selling?
Always trying to be helpful, me. 
0_o
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is this in the BBS Map Library?
reckon it oughtabe.
fun interactive map, but i really don’t want to pay to see just how doomed my home is.
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Maybe I’m missing something here, but I don’t see any description of what “having a driveway stolen” even means - did they rip up and take away the pavement?
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To be fair, stolen is a strange term to use here.
Demolished would be a bit more understandable, because stolen implies the material of the driveway would still retain its value after it is removed.
Which, I suppose, if it was made of individual blocks or bricks it could be resold?
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